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Lenten Living Ed. Note: First in a series for the Lenten Season. BY MSGR. JERRY HARDY You are invited to a five week experiment in simpler living, as a way of coming home to yourself and your God. You will not have to travel any great distance to a campsite or a convention center. The only place you’ll have to go is deep within yourself, for this experiment called LENT, and its only movement is the frozen motion we call a simple stillness of the heart which allows us to take a good hard look at ourselves. But what is this Lent to be about then? Is simpler living just another way of saying “reducing?” Yes, but not merely our weight and waist/waste lines ... Lent is about reducing to essentials, peeling away the layers of comfort and complacency that slip so subtly into our patterns of living that we hardly notice how they’ve rocked our values to sleep. Lent understood this way is larger and deeper and, oh yes, kinder than our usual thoughts about it: for the reduction and peeling are done not by some careless carving of our hearts, some mindless major surgery that removes our joy of living, but rather by a care-fully compassionate Father, in whose image we are created into whose likeness we are to grow. It is done by a loving Son-Brother, Jesus, who tries to convince us that life is not life at all without the dying that sets it free from Death; and by a Spirit, holy and gentle and persistent who would teach us by leading us to levels of insight where we learn to live with less so that others will suffer less, where we learn to sacrifice more so that others will receive more, where we learn that such choices, for the believing person, are not optional but essential, that the pains possibly accompanying them are not punishment but companionship, and that the consequences of them are not destruction and death but liberation and life. If Advent was “coming home to the truth about ourselves” Lent is coming home again to that truth after we have forgotten or misplaced it under selfish or unreflective choices. But then again, of what importance is the Christmas Story without Ash Wednesdays, Good Fridays, Easter Sundays? Is there not something basically incomplete about birth alone? And so it is with us, for we too are incomplete if we stay only at the place of Jesus’ birth. Lent is coming home again beyond the warm limits of manger and swaddling clothes to the life and death reality of choosing life over death at every turn. Advent told us ours is a neighborhood God lovingly come among us as the Jesus of Christmas; Lent tells us how this God walked our streets for the rest of His life as the Jesus of Everyday Choices. And this is where our experiment in simpler living enters, for to hear Lent’s message and absorb its richness, we will not be able to proceed “business as usual.” We will need to fast from food regularly so we can appreciate better the deeper hungers of our hearts and develop our identity with those whose rice bowls are empty. We will need to lay aside, even if only for a time, some of our more accustomed (Continued on page 3) University Lutheran Church in La Jolla on Ash Wednesday. The ashes are a sign that the season of Lent has begun. ASH WEDNESDAY - Campus chaplains from the University of California in San Diego distribute ashes during an ecumenical service at Mardi Gras Mohammed Ali is back from Africa. He went there as the newest roving ambassador of the Carter administration. The trip was a total disaster. Ali’s greatness, self-proclaimed and proclaimed by everyone else, lies behind the punch of a power-packed glove, not within the ropes of the political ring. His mission was to persuade African countries not to go to Moscow for the summer Olympics. He failed. Thrilled by his physique, entertainingly cheered by his chatter and amazed at ms achievements, the Africans loved the man but not the message. There was no great enthus iasm to boycott. After all, America has never shown wild opposition to racist South Africa, so what was the big problem of an invading Soviet machine? Ambassador Ali did not have the answers, admitted his deficiency and quickly threw in the towel, none of which was appreciated by the Peanut Mafia. The assignment was totally unfair. If we send an ambassador and want him to speak in a political arena, then only a State Department heavyweight should go. A sports great who thinks that great means “the greatest” is hardly the messenger we need. The finest good-will giant ever to set sail under the U.S. colors was jazz man supreme Louis Armstrong. To every continent, every capitol, behind curtains of bamboo and iron, he went winning admiring friends for his style, his music, and his nation. Louis Armstrong could preach the message because he did it with an international language of the heart. His horn was his passport. Blowing notes from his golden trumpet and rasping unintelligable lines of songs opened gates and doors from Moscow to Havana. His music said “America” and that kind of America was loved and accepted most melodically, wherever he went. As the seventies began Louis Armstrong died. According to his own beloved Lucille, the great maestro learned lessons of musical friendship during the wild, wonderful r years in his native New Orleans. The barriers of race were there, firmly fashioned by the Southern system, but broken down easily as music men plied their trade. “Mardi Gras was best,” the lady remembers “like a giant army they marched night and day filling the festive air with their very own music,” From the famous Irish Channel to the venerable St. Louis Cathedral, along South Rampart, the French Quarter and bluesy Bourbon Street they made Mardi Gras and New Orleans synonomous. Filling the carnival season with their own distinctive sound left no opportunity for thoughtless division. Louis Armstrong learned those lessons well and to a world, in difficult times, he easily passed the message of brotherhood along. As the final notes of the Mardi Gras fade and the solemn season of Lent begins, the concepts of goodwill, brotherhood and world community of peaceful cooperation and co-existance come to mind. In the life and death of our Savior, each of them was preached. Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta 1 1/ Vol. 18 No. 8 Thursday, February 21,1980 $6.00 Per Year VISITS HOSTAGES ~ Melkite-Rite Archbishop Hilarion Capucci is greeted by an unidentified American hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. The archbishop was invited to Iran by Ahmad Khomeini, son of Ayatollah APPROVAL QUESTIONED Khomeini, as part of the first anniversary celebration of the Iranian revolution. Monsignor John Nolan was also present during this visit, but the two did not travel together. Churchmen Visit Hostages VATICAN CITY (NC) - Msgr. John Nolan, president of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, said he traveled to Iran “with the full authorization of the Holy See.” In a statement issued Feb. 16, Msgr. Nolan added that he traveled unaccompanied to Teheran, the Iranian capital. The statement was signed by Msgr. Nolan and verified as representing the facts by Father Romeo Panciroli, Vatican press spokesman. The statement does not say what the nature of Msgr. Nolan’s trip was. The full text of the statement says: “Re: the NC News story 2-13-80 ‘Clergymen visited U.S. hostages minus papal OK, says Vatican’ “(1) Msgr. John Nolan went to Teheran with the full authorization of the Holy See in his capacity as the national secretary of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association and president of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine. (2) He went to Teheran and returned to Rome alone and unaccompanied. He did not, as reported, attend the conference marking the 15th anniversary of Egira. (3) He was a guest of the apostolic nunciature in Teheran, and on his return to Rome he was received in private audience by Pope John Paul II on Feb. 14. “(Signed): Msgr. John Nolan” The “15th anniversary” refers to the 15th centenary celebrations marking the founding of Islam. In Teheran, the ceremonies were held Feb. 11 to coincide with the first anniversary of the Iranian revolution. While in Teheran, Msgr. Nolan visited the American hostages being held in the U.S. embassy. Film provided by Iranian state television showed Msgr. Nolan and Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, former Melkite-Rite patriarchal vicar of Jerusalem, talking with the hostages. The visit occurred Feb. 8. After the visit, a Vatican spokesman said Archbishop Capucci did not have Vatican approval and accepted the Iranian invitation on his own behalf. Archbishop Capucci is a controversial figure in Middle East politics and spent three years in an Israeli jail on a gun-smuggling conviction. Msgr. Nolan’s statement was the first indication that the Vatican approved his trip to Teheran. The statement also implies that Msgr. Nolan’s activities were independent of those of Archbishop Capucci. Archbishop Capucci attended the Feb. 11 ceremonies. No details have been issued about Msgr. Nolan’s visit Feb. 14 with the pope. The Iranian television film was broadcast in the United States. Also visiting the hostages at the same time was Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khomeini, son of Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After the visit, Archbishop Capucci said the hostages were in (Continued on page 6) Bishops Oppose Draft; Registration Is Favored WASHINGTON (NC) - As an antidraft coalition announced plans for a March 22 protest demonstration in Washington, the U.S. bishops expressed their support for President Carter’s decision to begin draft registration. In a statement released Feb. 15 by the Administrative Board of the U.S. Catholic Conference, the bishops restated their opposition to a peacetime draft and opposed the registration and drafting of women. And on the same day, President Carter appealed to an audience of more than 250 student leaders for support of his draft registration proposals. His appeal apparently did not persuade many of them to drop their opposition to registration and the draft. “We acknowledge the right of the state to register citizens for the purpose of military conscription, both in peacetime and in times of national emergency,” the bishops 2 said. “Therefore, we find no o objection in principle to this action by the government. However, we believe it necessary to present convincing reasons for this at any particular time.” Stating that allowing but not requiring women to serve in the military was a practice that “has served us well as a society,” the bishops said they opposed both the registration and conscription of women. And on the draft itself, the bishops said they opposed reinstitution of military conscription “except in the case of a national defense emergency.” The statement repeated the bishops’ past support for the rights of conscientious objectors as well as the right to object to participate in a particular war. Noting that current U.S. law does not allow for selective conscientious objection, they called for a dialogue among legislators, lawyers, ethicists and religious leaders about making effective legal provision for selective conscientious objection. The March 22 protest demonstration against registration and the draft was being organized by a group calling itself the national Mobilization Against the Draft (MAD) and including students, politicians, women’s groups and religious activists. Endorsers of the demonstration include the United States Student Association, which claims three million members; Americans for Democratic Action; Students for a Libertarian Society; Women’s Strike for Peace and at least two members of Congress, Reps. Ronald Dellums (D-Calif.) and Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wis.). Meanwhile, the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD), composed of more than 40 anti-war, religious and other groups, accused the administration of a reversal of position on the registration issue that could backfire in Congress, in the courts and on college campuses. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, CARD chairman, said the administration had a plan for reaching its mobilization goals without advance registration but deleted it from its report to Congress on registration. He said CARD is seeking a copy of the plan under the Freedom of Information Act. CARD also accused the administration of underestimating the degree of resistance to registration among young people and of failing to prepare adequately to cope with it. In his meeting with student leaders, Carter said, “I see no prospect for a draft under present circumstances.” He said registration “will make the draft more avoidable” because it would signal to the Soviet Union that the United States is willing to be prepared to meet (Continued on page 8) Lenten Regulations - 1980 1) Ash Wednesday (February 20) and Good Friday (April 4) are days of abstinence from meat and also of fast. 2) The other Fridays of the Season of Lent are days of abstinence from meat. 3) All Catholics over fourteen (14) years are bound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays of Lent. Children under fourteen are not bound by the Law of Abstinence. Catholics who have reached their sixtieth birthday, are not bound by the Law of Fast. 4) The Fridays of the year outside Lent remains days of penance, but each individual may substitute for the traditional abstinence from meat some other practice of voluntary self-denial or personal penance. This may be physical mortification, temperance, acts of religion, charity or Christian witness. Charities Drive ... Service Through Your Gift ... March 2 it ♦ v